


Bad Romance

by loyaljarvy



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS, Kinda fluff, Kissing, Mostly talking, lots of feelings involved, post the end of the manga, super fluffy actually, this is more manga based than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaljarvy/pseuds/loyaljarvy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place after the events in the manga, and even after Edward and Alphonse both got back from exploring the East and the West. I may have altered the timeline a little bit, I don't entirely remember.</p>
<p>If I'm going to be honest, I wrote this six months ago and it's been sitting in my Google docs ever since then. I apologize for any typos or anything, I have had anyone to beta this yet.</p>
<p>I love this pairing a lot, it's probably one of my few straight ships because they're just so wonderful together. And I hope that you all enjoy it too!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Romance

It had only been a few months since Ed had been back, but somehow it felt like even more time than that. They hadn’t really had the chance to speak about the last words they spoke to each other before he left, at least not alone anyway. Al or Granny were always around, or customers who needed an automail tune up. She knew better than to try and force his hand into anything, he was bad enough with words as it was to begin with. And she wasn’t in a rush, she had learned in the past that good things came to those who were patient enough for them.

Winry looked at him from her spot over by the oven, having paused while she was rolling out the dough for one of the pies without her even realizing it. Little bits of stubble had started to grow down along the side of his jawline, and apart of her wondered if he was going to start to let his hair grow out into a beard like Hohenheim’s or if he just hadn’t looked in the mirror yet to notice it. He was kind of an idiot about these sorts of things, so it wouldn’t really surprise her that much. 

She found herself grinning when she saw him talking with Al about their findings. It seemed like they had each discovered more than enough information during their travels, and they still had only scratched the surface. And things were a little bit different from before, as Ed couldn’t use his alchemy anymore it made things a lot more difficult for him to put his theories to work. But that’s why Al was there, they were able to help each other. Even after all of these years, they were still there for each other, being each other’s pillar when they could.

She was almost too completely wrapped up in her thoughts to notice that Ed was looking back at her now, a brow raised up at her with a questioning gaze and calling out her name to bring her out of her own head. “What? Sorry did you say something?”

“Yeah, I asked if you were okay. You’re looking at me with this weird look on your face.” Despite how annoyed he wanted to sound, there was a hint of concerned compassion lurking underneath. He could act like he didn’t care, but she knew better. He had always cared, he was just terrible at showing it. Ed’s words made the younger blond look up at her too, the clearer expression of concern there on his face than his brother’s.

Seeing the looks on their faces made her smile, her eyes closing briefly before giving a nod and turning back to look at the dough where she continued to roll it out properly. “Of course I am. I was just thinking about things.” It was easier to leave it at that, there wasn’t any need to bring up something as trivial as facial hair. Although the look on his face might be worth it enough to do just that.

“Well… Alright, just let me know if there is.” Winry didn’t have to look back at him to know that he gave her a lingering gaze. That was something else she had noticed too; even after looking away from him she would often feel his eyes lingering over her as if he had something else to say before he looked away. Of course that was usually when someone else would walk into the room and say something to one or both of them and it would break his concentration. She said nothing about it, merely smiled to herself as she rolled out the pie crust for the final time. 

It was almost ritualistic that during the afternoons she would make an apple pie for after dinner, having perfected it by this point with the right amount of cinnamon and freshly picked apples. It was one of the best parts of her day to see Granny, Ed and Al enjoying something that she made. Even if it was something as simple as pie. She assembled everything into the pie pan, making sure that it looked well enough before putting it into the oven and making sure to set the little timer down by the oven. 

“If I’m not back up here by the time the pie is ready, could one of you pull it out and set it on the window sill for me?” Her fingers moved easily to undo the knot of the apron behind her back and lifted it up over her head before hanging it onto a hook close by her on the wall. All she got in response was a thumbs up from Ed and a big wide smile on Al’s face that she remembered was all full of mischief. Even if the face had aged a bit in between that time. “Don’t try and eat it, alright? That pie is for after dinner tonight and I don’t want to have to---”

“Yeah, yeah we get it Winry. You don’t wanna have to go through the trouble of making another one when you spent the time making it.” Ed’s head lifted up to look at her, though gold eyes were shielded enough by the bangs in front of his face. “We aren’t that bad, anymore.” Convincing as his words were, there was still the slight hint of a mischievous grin in the corner of his lips.

It was entirely out of habit that she glare at him and went to try and reach for a wrench, but Granny made a rule not to keep shop tools in the kitchen ( and probably for this very reason ). Instead she found herself smiling at him again, walking over to him and raising her hand up to him. It was a little amusing to watch how he flinched out of natural habit, but was pleasantly surprised when she was instead smoothing back his hair to get his bangs out of his eyes. “You weren’t bad to begin with.”

She knew the look in her eyes was warm and comforting, but what she wasn’t expecting was for that same look to be reflected back at her. Those big golden eyes that she had been looking at since they were little kids, running around and causing trouble and mischief. Now they were wide with confusion, questions that needed answers and words that had been left unsaid after all of this time. The expression of such emotion from one simple look caused her throat to close up and bite down on her bottom lip to keep from making any sound.

Before either one of them could say something, she retracted her hand from the top of his head and quickly turned out of the kitchen to head up the stairs to the bathroom. She needed a shower, she needed to not have to look at his face so close and be confused as to what to do. 

They have been friends for years, it was hard to imagine them as anything else… or anything more for that matter. She would be stupid to deny that she hadn’t entertained the idea in her head already, but she didn’t want to be hopeful in case it actually wasn’t what she thought it was between the two of them. Sure, she figured out she had been in love with him for a long time, but that didn’t mean that she wanted things to change between them. Not when things were even better now that they were back home and they didn’t plan on going anywhere for a long time, not right then. That’s what she liked to think, anyway.

It took a lot more effort on her part to not want to just dash up the stairs towards her room, but the house was so old that it would probably give it away that she was trying to get away from the kitchen in a rush. Which, you know, wasn’t entirely true. She just wasn’t entirely sure what she could say around him right now. Since she didn’t want to give the impression that she was attempting to run away, she simply pretended to skip. But that made her pause after a few steps because when was the last time she had skipped? Seriously when was that ever a thing she ever did.

Huffing to herself, she silently padded up the steps until she reached the top where Den was curled up sleeping. “Hey boy..” She rubbed the top of his head in between his ears, causing the older dog to perk up his head in mild interest before seeing it was Winry and laid his head back down on top of his folded legs. It was amazing, even from up the stairs and leading out of the kitchen, the two Elric brothers could still be heard downstairs chit chattering together. Which was either a testament to Winry’s hearing, or the fact that they were just getting really excited to contain themselves.

Her hand raised up to undo the knot keeping her hair up out of her face and let it fall down along her back as soon as she crossed over the doorway leading into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her to block everything else out. At least, she tried to. Her thoughts still wandered a bit, and usually when she was alone they would always find their way back to Edward. Of course he wasn’t the only thing that she ever thought about, she wasn’t so entirely hopeless that she couldn’t bring herself to think about things that needed to be done or people that she needed to get in contact soon. But somehow, he always managed to find a way to push in past her checklist of things to do so that he could be at the forefront of her mind. And that made her huff in frustration most of the time. Yet… not this time. 

Instead, it made her smile because of the look in his eyes. Maybe the blockhead was finally catching on, as it sometimes took him a little bit longer than other people to notice the small things around him. Laughing quietly under her breath, she got the water started and quickly stripped out of her clothing to under the cool water. Summers in Resembool could be brutal, that was evident by the layer that covered everyone in the house and in town. Being so far out in the country meant that there wasn’t a lot of coverage, save for the clouds, to really hide from and cool down. But Winry was grateful for the shower to help cool her down and clear out all of the swirling thoughts from her mind.

Of course it wouldn’t last, it never does. As soon as she got out of the shower or stopped working, it would return and make a small nest close by. It would be infuriating, if she was younger and didn’t understand why things like this were there. But she was older and liked to think that she had matured over the years so it wasn’t as weird as it could possibly be. 

The shower didn’t last long, as she knew that someone would be wanting a shower later too and she didn’t want to waste all of the water on the day just for her. And once she stepped out of the shower, she reached to grab a towel to dry off her hair as much as possible while wanting to keep it damp to keep her head cool and then wrapped it around her body tightly so that it wouldn’t risk falling as she moved around. She only bothered to scoop up her clothes here so that she could end up throwing them somewhere in her room. That place was probably a disaster, she hadn’t really been up there in over a week as she had been working a lot down in the basement where it was cooler and there was even a cot she could sleep on. Well, might as well try and clean it up now before it got too hot to really want to do anything about it.

She walked down the small hallway to her bedroom, not really remembering or not if she had left the door open the last time she was up here. Shrugging to herself, she turned to the side where her bed was and threw the dirty clothes on top of mussed sheets. Before removing the towel, she kicked the door closed enough in case someone walked by and just started to unwrap it when she heard a creak in another corner of her room.

There was this huge wave of deja vu when she looked over to see Edward sitting at the chair in front of her desk, his eyes so wide they looked like might pop out of his face and his face so bright it would have given the sun a run for it’s money. Upon instinct she quickly wrapped her towel around her body and felt her own cheeks flush a deep red, reaching to throw the closest thing next to her without bothering to look at it. 

Turns out that it was a wrench. “Hey! Are you trying to kill me!?!” That got a reaction out of him, his head barely ducking down in time to avoid the collision with the hard object as he looked back her when it hit the wall behind him. His eyes had grown back to their normal size, somewhat, but his cheeks were still a bright red.

“Are you kidding me!? You’re in my room and you don’t bother to say anything when you see me walk in wearing a towel!” Her voice had raised a bit, but she figured that if anyone was going to be coming to check in they would have the sound of a wrench hitting the wall. And that’s when it hit her. “Wait, where is Al? I thought you two were talking downstairs.”

That seemed to calm him down a bit too, seeing as how he was standing up from the chair and rubbing the back of his neck a bit. “He went out with Granny to town to get some last minute things for dinner tonight.” His gaze drifted down to look at the floorboards before him, trying to avoid her gaze. “Figured you would have gotten dressed in the bathroom, so I came in here to wait for you.”

She was quiet as she listened to him, the warmth in her cheeks heating up a bit more. He wanted to talk? He actually sought her out so that they could talk together? She bit down on the inside of her bottom lip and she shrugged, even though he wasn’t looking at her anymore. “It was too hot to get dressed again… And I didn’t grab any clothes before my shower. Figured I would clean up in here before I went back downstairs.” 

He simply nodded at her a few times, his flesh leg kind of making an awkward shuffling motion with his foot. “Right well.. I’ll leave so you can get dressed.” He lifted his head up only to look past her towards the door as he started to walk, out of common curiosity or the fact that he didn’t want to stare at her, she wasn’t entirely sure. 

“Ed,” her voice was firm as her hand reached out to grab onto his arm before he could reach for the doorknob to try and pull him back. She could feel some mild resistance underneath her fingers, but it wouldn’t take a lot to convince him to stay. “What did you want to talk to me about? Clearly it’s important if you came to wait in my room.” 

His head turned over to look over at her, that same look of confusion that she noticed in the kitchen. Looking at him now, it was a little hard to believe that he had actually gotten taller than her in the last few years, but it seemed like he had really grown into himself. His mouth hung open a few times, opening to try and speak but nothing could really come out. Apart of her wasn’t really surprised, he had always been really bad about expressing his feelings properly. Or he would shout out the nicest thing, like that day at the train station when he told her that the next time she would be crying would be out of happiness rather than sadness. She still thinks about that day sometimes, because they had all kept their promise they had made on that day.

“You can talk to me about anything, you know that.” Her thumb had rubbing against the smooth skin of his arm, her voice was just as soft as she smiled at him. She could put aside the feelings of the fact that he entered her room without her permission, again, for the sole factor that he apparently needed to talk about something important.

It seemed today was just going to be full of surprises, because instead of actually saying anything, he leaned forward with his eyes closed and pressed his lips against hers firmly. Admittedly she was a little startled, as she wasn’t even aware that he knew what kissing was to begin with. When she felt him starting to pull away, she quickly recuperated from her shock to press her lips back against his too. His lips were warm from the heat and surprisingly soft. Of course she had no idea what she was doing, but she didn't think he did either so that made it comforting in a way.

When they finally pulled away from each other, he slowly blinked his eyes open enough to see that she was smiling at him and the redness in her cheeks had softened to a light pink. Meanwhile, his own cheeks had turned back to that bright red, but he was smiling just as wide this time and let out a soft laugh. “Well I uh.. I wanted to talk to you about that. I wanted to do that earlier, but Al was there and I didn’t want him to laugh.”

That thought made Winry laugh and she gently smacked his arm where her hand still remained. “I don’t know if that counts as talking but.. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

His whole face lit up then, that smile almost reaching his eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him so happy, and she concentrated it to memory so that she wouldn’t ever forget it. “I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone found any mistakes here, whether it be grammatical or not, please let me know! I love constructive feedback<3


End file.
